Famous Writers Arrested: Ring Lardner, Jr.

Here we'll occasionally dive into mugshots of the criminally-inclined writers who found themselves in the big house. Crime doesn't pay, although literature sometimes does.


Today:  Ring Lardner, Jr.

Ring Lardner, Jr's. mugshot

Ring Lardner, Jr., was renowned in Hollywood circles in the 1940s, making more money for his screenwriting than most actors earned as the face of the movie. His success led to winning an Academy Award in 1942 for his script for the Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracey-led Woman of the Year.

But amidst all the fame, amidst all the glamour, amidst all the awards, Lardner's career spiraled onto a blacklist for a time as he went to jail for not participating in a congressional witch hunt.

So, why?

In the heady days leading up to World War II, the United States fell under a veil of panic, a precursor of sorts of the 1950's "red scare" of Communists from the Soviet Union.

By 1938, as Adolf Hitler gained power in Europe, the United States established the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which acted as an investigative arm of Congress that looked into any citizen--private or public--deemed subversive in their behavior. This was especially true of groups having affiliations with Fascist or Communist organizations.

Congressman Martin Dies, Jr., the first chairman of the HUAC from 1938-1945.

Congressional members picked their targets randomly. The HUAC went after the Federal Theater Project and Federal Writers Project, questioning if Communists had infiltrated the rash of actors and writers. They went after Japanese-Americans during World War II, creating an argument for their internment. And yet the HUAC chose not to go after the Ku Klux Klan because, as Congressman John Rankin of Mississippi said, "After all, the KKK is an old American institution."

As 1947 rolled along, and America began the early stages of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the HUAC targeted members of Hollywood for their left-leaning views. Over forty individuals testified, many naming names of others they claimed held Communist sympathies. It was a modern-day Salem Witch Trial, where no proof was needed, only allegations. But ten other witnesses chose not to cooperate with the congressional investigation--one of those ten being Ring Lardner, Jr.

The Hollywood Ten, with two others.

The group--later called "The Hollywood Ten"--included another Oscar-winning screenwriter, Dalton Trumbo. Both men, along with their eight fellow witnesses, claimed they had protections and privileges granted by the First Amendment that allowed them to not cooperate with the HUAC. Congress and the court system disagreed. Despite a number of appeals lasting until 1950, all ten men were sent to prison for contempt of Congress, with Lardner sentenced to one year at the Danbury (CT) Federal Prison.

Not the headline you want associated with yourself.

Hollywood blacklisted Ring Lardner Jr., Dalton Trumbo, and the eight other witnesses for a few years after their prison sentences, turning incredibly successful screenwriters and directors into jobless individuals looking for a break. But because Hollywood operates off of money, and money talks, circumstances slowly ebbed in Lardner's favor. By the mid-1950s, Lardner began writing under a pseudonym with fellow blacklistee Ian McLellan Hunter, scriptwriting for television shows like The Adventures of Robin Hood in Great Britain. The blacklist ended in 1965, when director Norman Jewison and producer Martin Ransohoff gave Lardner full screenwriting credit for the Steve McQueen movie The Cincinnati Kid, with Lardner's full name, his full respect, his full due.

By 1970, Lardner won a second Academy Award for his screenplay of the movie adaption of M*A*S*H.

Although near the end of his life, Lardner had one last laugh left. He confessed to fellow writer Miklós Vámos that he won yet another Academy Award under a pseudonym while blacklisted.

Lardner refused to say which pseudonym specifically, as another fellow writer allowed Lardner to use his name and did a favor during a very dark time. To this day, no one knows which famous movie it is exactly that Lardner wrote.

A short addition to this story that brings it all together:
The chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 was a Republican Congressman from New Jersey named J. Parnell Thomas.

In 1948, Thomas' secretary sent newspaper columnist Drew Pearson information regarding how Thomas was placing people on his staff payroll as clerks (although they were clerks in name only), and then these individuals would turn their income back over the Thomas. This increased his salary and allowed Thomas to avoid a higher tax bracket.

Rep. J. Parnell Thomas

A grand jury was convened and Thomas was called to testify. He claimed he had First Amendment rights that absolved him from cooperating, just as "The Hollywood Ten" had claimed in 1947 when Thomas was chairman--a right he denied them.

The courts disagreed he had that right as well, and Thomas was convicted of fraud and sentenced to 18-months in a federal prison.

The prison? The same Danbury (CT) Federal Prison Ring Lardner, Jr. received his sentence. Their sentences overlapped. Lardner and Thomas, the accused and the accuser, became prison mates.

Saturday Morning PSA of The Week: Littering never had such a catchy jingle before!

Today's public service announcements are all information and no imagination--but yesteryear's? Those were full of drama, plot lines, and cameos from B-grade celebrities, all wedged into one minute of absolute fantasticness.

Consider this a trip back in time to when PSAs were sometimes worth watching more than the Saturday morning cartoons.


Today:  You don't even want to know what Mississippi's roads look like by comparison.





Random Thoughts and Questions:
1.)  Wait--did the song just start out by calling me trash??
2.)  You really have to commend the state of Tennessee for admitting a sizable portion of its population is trash. That takes some guts.
3.)  I think I'm more impressed that this convertible can hold that much garbage. That's a testament to some quality leg room right there.
4.)  Is this a PSA about littering or the lack of state police oversight on Tennessee highways?
5.)  Don't we all really want to know who cleaned up all the trash after they filmed this? Like a gusty breeze didn't come around and send thousands of pieces of "fake" litter off into becoming "real" litter.

Some Famous Writer Once Lived Here: Oxford, Mississippi

Some Famous Writer Once Lived Here is where we check out cities or towns that--you guessed it--a famous writer once lived. Picture the illegitimate lovechild between the US Census report and a tourist pamphlet from a local chamber of commerce. What's it like there today? Here's where we find out.



Today:  William Faulkner once lived in Oxford, Mississippi:

William Faulkner has been called the Shakespeare of America. This is startling because it's difficult to picture Shakespeare with a southern accent and brandishing a shotgun.

At some point in the last hundred years, Mississippi gave up the title to most frightening American state to Alabama after a lengthy struggle where multiple lives were lost in a muddin' fiasco involving pickup trucks and four-wheelers largely adorned in Confederate flags. No one knows what happened specifically, but rumors abound that it involved light beer, six brain cells, and Alabama coming out on top. Strangely, it was a high point in Mississippi's history.

Alabama celebrates victory and defeat at the same time.

While you can still hear the frightening pluck of banjos and subtle din of monster trucks in the distance, Mississippi does have some fairly polite, even classy areas largely infiltrated by a strange phenomenon called "education."

Although anyone who has ever seen a professor wear a paisley sweater vest knows education can be frightening, too.


The basics of Oxford, Mississippi:

Location:
Far north from the Gulf coast, Oxford is only 85-miles away via major highways, or 78-miles via the minor variety, from Memphis, TN, reminding people that while it might not be Xanadu or desirable, Memphis is nearby and sure as hell isn't Mississippi.

Do not confuse Oxford, MS, with Oxford, England. Common mistake. But Oxford, England, is 4,336 miles away and involves heavy amounts of dry humor and rejoicing in the rain.

2010 Census:

Population: 18,916 people make up Oxford, up 61% since 2000. Almost 1-in-3 residents resides in poverty though, proving that--oh, wow--oh, god. A third are in poverty? One of the best parts of Mississippi has that much poverty? Oh, Christ. I give up. Just continue on without me. I'm done.

Racial Makeup: In 2010, 13 people claimed to be of Hawaiian or Pacific Islander backgrounds. That's up from 2 people during the 2000 census. Those 2 people were horribly, horribly lost from rogue Google Maps coordinates, it appears.


What to see, what to do in Oxford, Mississippi:

The top thing to do in Oxford, according to TripAdvisor? Visit the University of Mississippi! Nothing says a sexy vacation quite like spending all day roaming a random college campus in 90-degree heat, sipping bourbon, and yelling something about rebel pride. That'll be the envy of everyone on your Instagram feed.

The University of Mississippi goes by the nickname Ole Miss, which they claim is from their old yearbook title, the Ole Miss Annual, and has nothhhhing to do with slaves calling the wife of a plantation owner "ole miss." As if Mississippi would ever do something subtly racist. It's practically the ACLU of the south after all.

No Rhett Butler here.

There's also William Faulkner's estate, Rowan Oak. It's like Gone with the Wind's Tara Plantation, except with less Scarlett O'Hara chest-thumping, and Rhett Butler actually doesn't give a damn and never wants to be seen at Rowan Oak. For $5 you can tour the house and remember all of those Faulkner books you made sure never to read in college.

Do you like feeling depressed? There's the Confederate Cemetery in town. Yes. That Confederacy. Says Regina from Memphis on TripAdvisor, it is "wonderful history." Oh, Regina, no matter how you approach cemeteries or slavery, no one ever pauses and thinks, "Well, you know, that's some little slice of wonderfulness right there."

Feeling like a little church revival? Swing on into College Hill Presbyterian Church, famous for its antebellum architecture and where Faulkner got married. Are you a Presbyterian? Do you want to be? No? You're making this difficult for all involved.

When in doubt, there's always Wal-Mart located about two minutes outside of the University of Mississippi's campus. Phew.


Where to eat in Oxford:

Are you tired of Colonel Sanders and Kentucky's claim to fried chicken? Visit Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken then. Do you know Gus? No. Neither do I. Is Gus lying about being world famous? Let's just agree Gus has overstepped his proclamation just a tad.

Ajax Diner sells fried food as well, but also has toothpicks in the ceiling. I'm not sure why, but if the food doesn't sell you, low expectations might do the trick.

Looking for awkward names for your restaurant of choice? There's Handy Andy. Admit it--you raised an eyebrow wondering what Andy's getting handsy over, too. Is he good with general contracting work? Sure, let's assume that.


Isn't Aubigny-sur-Nère, France, a sister city of Oxford?

Yes. And like most siblings, it really doesn't want to talk much.

Second guessing its parentage.

William Faulkner's thoughts on his hometown:

(In reference to Yoknapatawpha County, a fictional stand-in for Oxford in his books.)

"I like to think of the world I created as being a kind of keystone in the universe; that, small as that keystone is, if it were ever taken away the universe itself would collapse."

The American southwest is apparently an education wasteland.

The Common Core Standards were adopted by forty-four states as an effort to improve student results in a variety of math and reading curriculum. Yet a recent study suggest that not only has improvement stagnated under the initiative, it might have resulted in worse performances.

According to a study at Education Week, scores have stalled or decreased--and by their metric of scoring (high school graduation rates, proficiency scores on tests, per pupil spending)--no state garnered an "A" grade. The best is Massachusetts, which earned a "B."

The American southwest/lower midwest is where the most troubling grades occur, with four of the five worst states residing there.

The five worst:
5. Arizona  (D+)
4. Oklahoma  (D+)
3. New Mexico  (D)
2. Nevada  (D)

Nevada holds the honor--or disturbance--of having the lowest percentage of graduating students from high school, at 60%.

But the worst state for education, according to Education Week's study?

1. Mississippi  (D)

Only 22% of Mississippian students in 4th and 8th grade are deemed proficient in either math or reading.

Sometimes it's hard picking on a state that's only found success in failure.

2,000 graves from former asylum found on college campus.

Sounds like the plot to a B-grade zombie movie, but it's happening now at the University of Mississippi Medical Center campus, where land being surveyed for a new parking garage found mass burial plots.

Radar imaging found what's believed to be upwards of 2,000 unmarked graves located on the property.

The graves come from a collection of sources that were once nearby, including the former State Lunatic Asylum, a former African American church, and what's described as a "potter's field for indigent people."

The cost to remove the bodies is prohibitive to construction (upwards of $3,000 per grave), so the university is looking elsewhere for the garage site.

And that concludes today's creepy asylum mass burial plot news.

Which state uses racist language the most?

According to a study that researched racist words searched on Google, the state that searches for racist language most is West Virginia.

The Top Ten:
1. West Virginia
2. Louisiana
3. Pennsylvania
4. Mississippi
5. Kentucky
6. Michigan
7. Ohio
8. South Carolina
9. Alabama
10. New Jersey*

The only surprise here is Pennsylvania. But, really, go fifteen miles outside Philadelphia and the banjos and overalls crowd pretty much dominates.



*Don't even act surprised about New Jersey in the top ten. All the racist New Yorkers move there. It's one pitchfork away from a John Grisham novel.

Travel & Leisure wants you to know what towns to avoid.

College towns are great if you're a college student. They're not so great if you're just a local who lives there.

I was once a local who lived in such a town, born and raised. It's great when tens of thousands of people under the age of 25 congregate in one location and spend the next four years devaluing local property values. Shirtless, listening to Linkin Park on 40,000 watt speakers at 2am, where every weeknight becomes Keg Stand Night--all because mom and dad begged them to attend college somewhere 2,000 miles away.

Yeah. College towns are precious when you're a local. Downright dreamy.

So, good news! Travel & Leisure has a list of the "best" college towns--from Oxford, MS, to Burlington, VT--where I can only surmise the locals sob quietly to themselves whenever September rolls around.